Yesterday it emerged that a plot to launch "commando-style" attacks had been intercepted and foiled by drone attacks on militants based in Pakistan.

Associated Press reported today that eight Germans and two British men were behind the plot. The news agency said one of the British brothers had been killed in a recent CIA air strike.

US, UK, French and German intelligence agencies were involved in disrupting the planned suicide raids, officials revealed yesterday. The plan for the attacks bore similarities to the 2008 atrocity in Mumbai, where 166 people were killed in a series of gun and grenade assaults.

AP quoted an unnamed Pakistani intelligence official as saying German and British citizens were behind the planned attacks.

He said the suspects had been hiding in North Waziristan, a Pakistani tribal region where militancy is rife and the US has focused many of its drone-fired missile strikes.

The official said that one of the Britons, whom he named as Abdul Jabbar, was killed in a strike on 8 September. Jabbar was believed to be under 30.

AP said the source had "characterised the plot as immature" but he warned against underestimating the suspects.

"It does not mean that they are not capable of materialising their designs," the official said. "They are very much working on it."

He said the group had backing from al-Qaida, the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban.

"They have been making calls to Germany and London," the official said. "They have been talking about and looking for facilitators and logistics they need there to carry out terror strikes."

A Foreign Office spokesman said todayhe could not comment on security matters.

After news broke of the plot yesterday security sources insisted that attacks in Europe were not imminent. The Eiffel Tower in Paris, however, has been evacuated twice because of a bomb scare in the past two weeks – a precaution that may have been prompted by the intelligence.

The head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, spoke publicly this month about the continuing threat of terror attacks in the UK. In his speech he suggested that around 50% of the plots identified had links to Pakistan – a decline on previous estimates that suggested the figure was nearer 75%.

The terror group behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks was the outlawed Pakistani-based Lashkar-e-Taiba.

In the aftermath of the attack western intelligence agencies gained access to computers seized from the Islamist group which listed other potential targets outside the Indian subcontinent for commando-style terror strikes.